# Read the first page of Whisper Down the Lane by Clay Chapman Read the opening of Whisper Down the Lane by Clay Chapman free, no signup. A boy's lies spark a satanic panic that returns to haunt him decades later. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/whisper-down-the-lane-clay-chapman - Genre: Horror - Year: 2021 - ISBN: 9781683692164 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781683692164&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781683692164 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781683692164 ## The opening They found Professor Howdy spread across the soccer field. What was left of him, anyway. His chest cavity had been carefully cracked open, his rib cage fanning back as if it were the glistening crimson trigger hairs on a Venus flytrap, patiently waiting for its prey to wander inside its gaping maw. The entirety of his intestines, large and small, had been gingerly unspooled to the end of their connective tissues across the lawn in some sort of luminous pattern. I say luminous because his guts looked like beams of wet sunlight radiating out from the rest of his hollow self. Pattern because there seemed to be a particular—I don’t know—methodology to the placement of his organs. Someone arranged them to look this way. On purpose. To see. For who, though? It felt like he was meant to be revered. I say revered because, even to my eye, there was something beatific to the way his body was presented. Holy, almost. And trust me—even this is coming from a completely nonreligious person. I’ve never even set foot inside a church. That’s not entirely true. There were a few visits to Sunday school that I can barely recall at this point. Distant memories by now. I vaguely remember taking communion as a kid. Once. Take and eat, the pastor said as he pressed a stale cracker past my lips, for this is my body. That dry sacramental wafer adhered itself to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t wash out the pasty undertaste for the rest of the day, stuck with this phantom flavor on my tongue. But that was years ago. A whole other lifetime ago. All I’m trying to say is, even I could sense the awe of this grisly exhibition. Feel it, somehow. The downright ardor of it. Professor Howdy’s lungs fanned out like angel wings flapping against the grass. The liver, the stomach, the spleen—that is the spleen, isn’t it?—placed with exacting precision. Each organ was its own celestial body orbiting the corpse it had erupted from. His heart now rested in the patch of grass directly above his head. A bleeding crown. Dawn broke an hour or so before our school’s groundskeeper—Diego, I think his name is—discovered the poor professor. The morning sun found his body first, pelt glistening in dew. His blood had a crystalline sheen against the green, like red stained glass. Something you might see in Sunday services. Saint Howdy. Our school’s tragic rabbit, angelic white fur and glazed-over pink eyes, captured among all the other apostles. Professor Howdy was always kept in Miss Castevet’s classroom. He belonged to the school, its students, but Miss Castevet was ultimately responsible for his upkeep. That meant cleaning out his cage. Feeding him. Picking up the poo pellets. The nitty-gritty stuff nobody else, particularly the kids, ever wanted to get their hands dirty doing. Students were always welcome to stop by Miss Castevet’s room and pay Professor Howdy a visit. She set up designated feeding hours for anyone to swing by and offer up a handful of rabbit chow for him to nibble directly from their palm. And sometimes, on the specialest of occasions, as Miss Castevet liked to say, she would even pull Professor Howdy out from his cage and let him hop around the room. Door closed, of course. There had been one particular incident at the very beginning of the school year, when someone—I’m not naming any names here (cough, cough, Benjamin Pendleton, cough cough)—left the classroom door open and the professor broke free, hopping down the hall. The ensuing manhunt—bunnyhunt?—was a school-wide event. All the students got involved in the search party. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-night-sister-jennifer-mcmahon.md) - [The Reformatory by Tananarive Due](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-reformatory-tananarive-due.md) - [Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay](https://uncovered.ink/read/horror-movie-paul-tremblay.md) - [Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman](https://uncovered.ink/read/shiny-happy-people-clay-mcleod-chapman.md) - [Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill](https://uncovered.ink/read/heart-shaped-box-joe-hill.md) - [Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix](https://uncovered.ink/read/horrorstor-grady-hendrix.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.